Schizophrenia - I Think My Neighbor Has This Illness - And Boy Do I Need Help . . .. .?

Question

My neighbor is a troubled man and although I'm not a doctor I've got darn good reason to believe that he has a mental illness.. . my guess - Schizophrenia . My aunt had/has the same thing and he exhibits all the same signs . Lately he's under extreme pressure on his job and I think it has triggered a new level of his illness . He can be functional , totally functional it seems at times(I think he takes medication , but when really sick I wonder) but then spiral into senselessness .

My visit with him last week did not go well . He wasn't making a helluva lot of sense and eventually I just resorted to agreeing with him and attempting to change the subject to better things . It worked a little bit , but by the end of the visit more non-sensical things kept coming out of his mouth .

What Can I Do To Help Him ?
Does Talking About Positive Subjects Help ?

Thank you so much !!

Answer 1

maybe he's just getting too high...
unless he looks like/ or is harming someone he's ok.
maybe you should ask if you can havesome of what he's got? tell him to kick down.
i would ask if he's alright. tell him in a low key way, that he's not making sense.is everything ok?maybe get next to a family member and fill them in.
also;a family member could be able to enforce help.
you sound like a good neighbor,and a true friend. people like you are becoming rare. good luck.

Answer 2

Do you believe he is a danger to self or to others? Check on how you reach a mental health professional. Almost all communities have one person who is designated as the contact for emergency cases. The police know how to reach this person, but he/she alone has the power to take a person into custody and admit them to a hospital where the person can get help. People who go off meds because they feel good is a grave danger. Know how you can get help if you believe you and others need it.

Answer 3

Talk to him in a calm reassuring voice, keep a non-confrontational stance with him, ask him how he is feeling & if there is anything you can do to help. Tell him your his friend & that you care about him & you are worried that he isn't feel well.

But unless he is a threat to himself or others only he or his legal guardian can make him go in for an evaulation and/or treatment.

Answer 4

For most people, stress can make an illness of that sort worse. At those times, medication levels usually need to be adjusted, but some people are not good enough at self-monitoring, or don't have someone to help them monitor their mood, so they don't know to talk to their medical professional about changing meds around to deal with the new problems.

Schizophrenia is especially difficult, because of the psychotic episodes where people lose partial or complete contact with reality. Does this gentleman have family living with him? If so, you might try to bring it up tactfully. Mental illness is hard to deal with if everyone in the family is not well-informed, and sadly, most families are not really well educated on the subject.

Unfortunately, since you aren't part of his family, there isn't much you can do to help him. You cannot even talk to his employer about it, to see how he is doing at work. One thing you can do is sort of watch out for him. If he completely loses it and isn't feeding himself, or bathing himself, or going to work, and just really cannot care for himself, you can call your local health department and tell them you are concerned for him because you believe he's mentally ill, and that he's having a particularly bad time. They can step in and get him help. Other than that, your hands are pretty much tied.

Sadly, when he's really out of it, talking about positive subjects won't help much, because he'll be off somewhere else, not really IN the conversation, if you see what I mean. One thing you can do, and this sounds kind of weird, but it is good, is find out if there's something small which brings him a lot of joy. Sometimes it's funny things like a type of candy bar, or going out and looking at the birds, or those little toys you get out of the quarter vending machine at the grocery store. If you can find out what types of things "soothe" him, you may be able to help calm him down until you can call his family or someone who can help him out. I used to have this friend who was actually bi-polar, but she'd go off her meds, and then have psychotic episodes. She worked in the mental health field, and she hated lithium because of what it does to your affect, so when her mood was really stable, she'd stop taking it, and she'd decompensate sooner or later. She'd call me just talking a mile a minute about weird stuff. I would call her parents (she was in her late 20s, but they could always get her to go back on her meds, or get her to go to the doc, who could convince her), and then if possible, I'd go to her house with a couple of blueberry bagels, and we'd watch MTV, which calmed her down and made her pretty happy. Sooner or later one of her parents would "drop by" and suggest they go out to eat, and then they'd take her to a favorite eatery and handle it from there. So those stop-gap measures work, but they work best if there's someone you can contact who can come and actually handle the crisis.

If your neighbor has times when he's really in the present, and all there, you can try bringing it up with him, but you have to be really careful. It's a sensitive subject, and he may freak out. You might do better sort of asking a bit about family if he's alone, and maybe getting a contact number so you can call someone when he's in dire straits, meaning someone who both has the will and the legal ability to get him the help he needs. If he is mentally ill, but lives all alone, there should be someone, somewhere, who is supposed to help monitor him, even if it's only his doctor. If you can find that information, it would be really good.

Bless you for being such a good neighbor and caring for him enough to ask in the first place. Best of luck.

Answer 5

Believe me you won't be able to help him. Just agree nicely, treat him with respect and try to distance yourself and family.

Pray for him. But if you get any type of uneasy feeling in your gut when around this guy, "Stay AWAY".

If he is medicated that will keep him numb for the most part but who to say he will always take his medicine.

If his eyes are glassy, stay away.

Answer 6

Well, the only thing I can suggest is that you try to talk to him about it if he's ever lucid. The only problem is, though, that schizophrenics are normally convinced that they're normal and that everyone else is crazy, so you may not be able to convince him that he needs help.

Answer 7

wait until he is in a semi-good state and tell him you've been worried and his behavior has been erratic. let him talk to you- it feels good to get things off your chest, be his personal listener. tell him to consult his doctor. and if he is worried about anything give him some advice on how to handle things.

Answer 8

I don't think you can help him. I've dealt with several.